Imagine. (rewrite)

I.
Imagine if my hands could fly,
plucking a world of liquid color,
each strand the hidden contour
of shadow beaks and butterfly wings
   dancing behind each current-rose,
a different taste of pastel, each
   flossed by a full-mouthed light.

Wide as the wingspan of the sea
always singing a swallow,
let its captive sky and unarmed sun
paint me as I change my threads below-
pigments eat tone from starved stone
   where even the waters will shiver-
   this land of the injured breezes left
   slung in gauze sickles to drift asleep
   as clouds for the meadows beneath.

First light, I'd spring my spine,
steep myself in the horizon cheeks of sunset,
    with a dawn yawning into a cold cloth-
I'd watch the waves cast away silver hairs
   as I pull in another gossamer tapestry
   dyed from above the river of night.

II.
Imagine if my hands were the wind,
my soul a water nymph, quicksilver fast
     in a dance to flee from thoughts,
my heart, two laced silk shoes
far behind with heavy heels hobbling,
     too lost to look for breath.

In my high castle in the clouds,
cold with deep keystones of ice,
my own domed ceiling will be woven
by spiders, who drink slow rains
clotting through the veins of storms,
      a river of frost, not yet spun
       will run beneath my rushes-
The unripe sun spills on the ground
to melt the bones grown in gravity.

Forever, I'd weave the days, guard
and chain them in steel-eyed mists
to be a keeper of life in a sea of stars
      on an island nearly lost,
An unending siege forced to a standstill.